The Countdown Begins (Updated)

Time flies. Without realizing, in a couple of days my blog - Sikmading's Sabah, Malaysian Borneo - will celebrate its 1st birthday.

Last month, I set myself the target of 100 posts with a minimum of 5,000 visits (based on Sitemeter) before July 15. Thank God, that target was achieved well ahead of time. This is my 118th post and at last count there was more than 5,600 visitors. As I had then said, the next target would be another 100 posts in 3 months and not 1 year! With your support and God's guidance, I hope to make it.

I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank all of you for your support. Without readers or visitors, a blog would be meaningless or useless no matter how well it is written.

Special appreciation to local blogger Joseph Bingkasan whose sms to me one day in late June or early July last year prompted me to jump unto the blogging bandwagon. His sms was to announce the birth of his blog, Aki Momogun (http://akimomogun.blogspot.com). But after visiting his blog, I told myself: If he can do it, why can't I? After all, we both have journalistic background and if journalists can't write, then who can?

Thanks also to another fellow-journalist Ruben Sario (Postcards from Borneo) for introducing me to Giuk.Net (From Sabah to the World) and blogger Ben Godomon a.k.a. Mr Pinolobo (Chronicles, among others) for helping to expedite my acceptance into the local network group. And of course, thank you to all of you at Giuk.Net including fellow Sabah bloggers for your visits, comments, advice. tips and support. Not forgetting my new found friends at Blog Rush and Blog Catalog. Also not forgetting Ahiruddin Attan a.k.a Rocky's Bru, one of Malaysia's top bloggers for mentioning my blog soon after I started. (I actually missed it myself but a friend told me so.)

My appreciaiton to Sabahan journalist based in KL (formerly Singapore), Jaxon S (Jaxon's Review and Borneo Blog) for his regular visits and generous advice and tips. The same goes to another Sabahan journalist based in Bangkok (formerly KL), Philip Golingai (Thai Takes) for his generous support.

Apart from Jaxon and Philip, J Bingkasan is another local journalist who has served not only outside Sabah but also outside Malaysia for that matter. I am proud of you guys, especially JB aka Aki who was the first Sabahan journalist to be based in London, working for the News Straits Times. It must have been a dream come true for him. I know because as a young trainee reporter me too had that kind of dream.

When I first got involved in journalism in the early 1970s, there wasn't many journalism courses or schools in this part of the world and most working journalists were school leavers. If you had a Diploma in Journalism then, you were already a 'qualified journalist' or somebody in the local press scene; what more if you had a journalism degree which was almost not available in Malaysia then. Thus, to be sent overseas for journalism training was quite a big deal those days. My 'idol' then, just like most young local journalists, were the three Sabahan reporters who had the benefit of being trained in Germany. Although it was just a 3-month International Diploma in Journalism course conducted in Berlin, the trio were definitely role models looked up to by young or up-and-coming local journalists including myself. Unfortunately, two of them had passed away. They were the late Tuanku Sharif Hamid (better known as TS Hamid) and the late Eddie Sequerah Ng. The other veteran is Wahid Norbinsha who is now a businessman. All three were at one time or another association with the old Sabah Times or Kinabalu Times which later merged to become Kinabalu Sabah Times.

The most 'qualified' local journalist then must have been Mr John Padasian (later Johan), the former Deputy Director of Information during the Usno era in the early 1970s. We were told he was the first Sabahan to hold a degree in journalism which he obtained from Australia. When the then Director of Information, the late Datuk Thomas Willie retired during the Berjaya era in late 1970s, John took over. Another Sabahan journalist of the good old days worth mentioning is Mr Melvin Okala. Although I am not sure if he had paper qualifications in journalism, he was certainly the first Sabahan (and first Murut) to be the correspondent and later Bureau Chief of Malaysia's National News Agency, Bernama, in Kota Kinabalu in the 1970s. Melvin, who later became Chief Editor of the old Sabah Times, has since retired, of course.

I am sorry to have detracted from the original purpose of this post but I suppose each and everyone of us do take a trip down memory lane once in a while. We are, after all, human. Furthermore, I would be selfish not to share with my juniors or the younger journalists of today what it was like in the early days of my time as a reporter.

Those days, a new or trainee reporter was also called a cub reporter. But I started as a what they called 'stringer', meaning part-time reporter usually corresponding from a certain town or district. I 'stringed' for my hometown of Tamparuli and district of Tuaran for the local English newspapers. I literally appointed myself to be one while waiting for my Form 5 results, being self taught and learning the ropes along the way. Those days, the Form 5 exam was still for the Cambridge School Certificate of Education (masih 'orang putih' punya bah) while for Form 6 it would be Senior Cambridge.

So, once again, thank you very much and may God bless you all.